


Leap

by Dogsled



Category: due South
Genre: Art, Coda, Digital Art, First Kiss, First Time, Fix-It, Gift Fic, M/M, Post-Episode: s03e12 Mountie on the Bounty, Romance, Sailing, Shipping, Sunsets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-09-18 11:03:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16993821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dogsled/pseuds/Dogsled
Summary: Both Fraser and Ray have to take a leap. It's time for this ship to sail. Also sunsets ARE romantic.A coda to Mountie on the Bounty which goes beyond that lovely scene at the end with Ray and Fraser laughing together. What happens next?A due South Seekrit Santa exchange fic for Shinythings who asked for episode based fic with a side of Fraser/Ray!





	Leap

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shinythings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinythings/gifts).



> I do this Seekrit Santa every year just to honor the fandom where I found my feet after so so long being unable to write. You are my home, you made me so grateful for finding fandom again, and I love doing this. I love all of you. Thank you for making me feel so welcome. It's nice to play in this sandbox again!
> 
> Many thanks to [redacted] who beta read this fic for me even though it's not their fandom. They said to me after reading: "Even without knowing these characters I understand they are very close and went through something traumatic together." I beamed ear to ear, 'cause they are, and they did.
> 
> These are my boys. It was nice to draw them together at last! And combining my many storied love of sailing ships with this show is ALWAYS fun.

As the sun lowered over the horizon, it had all seemed so romantic. Well, not necessarily romantic as such, not really. But it was the start of something, not the end of it, and that was all that mattered to Ray.

 

He’d been in this role for months now, walking in Ray Vecchio’s shoes and never really being sure why it mattered so much. The scrutiny had long gone. Nobody was looking too hard at “Detective Ray Vecchio” any more, assuming they’d ever really paid much attention to him in the first place. Making the choice to stay rather than take the transfer? It turned out to be an easy decision. Going back to his own life just wasn’t worth it. Everything with Stella had fallen apart and he’d come to the conclusion now that there was no saving it. Nobody missed him from the old precinct, and nobody would care if he never came back; if he was never Stanley Kowalski ever again.

 

More than that, staying was a commitment to more than the job or to his new precinct. It wasn’t a commitment to Ray Vecchio either, a man he’d never met. It was a commitment to  _ Fraser _ .

 

He wondered if Fraser understood. They’d been arguing for what felt like weeks now, strained to breaking point and beyond, and it had taken chaos on the high seas, pirate ships and sailing ships, to rediscover their partnership again.

 

Tapping his fingers against the rail, Ray went over the last few hours again. He’d almost died several times in quick succession, and thinking about it now, staring down at the waves lapping against the wooden hull of the ship, his fear of water had hardly abated. He’d almost drowned, and the cloying fear of that, the tightness of his chest when he remembered that sense of panic, came in with a renewed fervor every time he closed his eyes. It would probably take a long time to forget. 

 

The submarine hadn’t been much better. The heat had been suffocating, sweat clinging to them both, his fingers clawed and digging knots in Fraser’s sweater as they cut blindly through the water. The ocean crushing them from every direction was impossible to escape, just as it had been when Ray was drowning, helpless against his instinct to draw breath even though there was no longer any air to be found.

 

Fraser had listened to his instinct, for no other reason than the fact that Ray said so. It worked out too well for Ray to admit, even now, that he hadn’t the slightest clue which way they should have been going. That he chose correctly was little more than a fluke, that was all. His decision could have gotten them both killed--or worse. If Fraser knew then he wasn’t letting on, which was  _ great _ because that was exactly the kind of smarmy know-it-all attitude that had led to Ray punching him in the first place.

 

But here they both were. Alive. They owed it to each other.

 

Fraser could have stepped away. Thatcher was here, and Ray figured the two of them had a thing. But he was still here even as the light faded, listening to the spars creak and the boards beneath them groan as the sails heaved the ship forward. It was almost as though he didn’t dare move away and break the spell woven between them. 

 

Maybe it was more than that, though. They’d been glued together side by side for so long now that the idea of leaving Fraser and heading below decks seemed like a monumentally stupid idea. They worked so well together—and so horribly apart—that the world might come down around their ears if they even thought about it.

 

Or the boat would sink, he supposed, which was in Ray’s opinion infinitely worse than the world ending.

 

No. They were stuck with each other now. Fraser would just have to suck that up, and so would Thatcher. And Ray? Well, he had to take a leap.

 

He patted the rail again like it was a skin drum, and his heart raced to meet the pace, raising his nerve to actually reach out and do what he was planning to do. A moment later he was closing his hand over Fraser’s, winding his fingers around Fraser’s, still keeping his eyes on the horizon where the sunlight was fading red and gold over the water.

 

Fraser turned his head ever so slightly in Ray’s direction. There was no confusion in his face, which Ray had been afraid for. Instead, all he found was understanding, softness, and the tiniest nod.

 

Funnily enough, they didn’t really need to communicate any better than that. Ray understood. Fraser understood. That was what partnership was all about.

 

When Ray moved away, he didn’t look back to try and establish whether Fraser was coming after him. He couldn’t hear him, but then he rarely could, and the creak and snap of the ropes above them helped to smother both their footsteps. They climbed up a ladder, one after another, and by instinct Ray headed toward the front of the ship, the forecastle, stopping only when they reached the very end.

 

Standing over the pointy bit that Fraser called the bow, Ray found himself staring face first into the wind over the bowsprit. A huge sail opened beneath them, pulling down toward the sea, up, and forward. The ship shredded the black water beneath it, sending a frothing spray in both directions, but Ray had been in far more perilous situations involving water in the last few days. He had no energy left to worry about the crashing waves, and Fraser led the way over the edge, climbing down onto the narrow semi circle of deck from which the bowsprit cut into the air ahead of them, the figurehead secured to its other side. Fraser’s arms wrapped around him, chasing away the biting cold.

 

They didn’t speak. It was a long time not speaking for Ray, actually, but any discomfort he might have had with the prolonged silence was forgotten when Fraser’s mouth thrust against his own. Fraser kissed with such resolve that any words Ray might have had dissolved unformed against his tongue. No more words were coming, either, not with his mind short-circuiting into blissful silence. Fraser was kissing him. It felt like he’d been waiting a lifetime for this moment.

 

There was lake dirt dried into Fraser’s hair when Ray dragged his fingers through it, leftover from their desperate lifesaving swim yesterday. These lips had been pressed against his own then, and while the context had been different, it wasn’t so vastly different from this. The devotion Fraser had to him had been conveyed then, too; it was why it had been hard to think of buddy breathing as just an effort to save his life. Now that Fraser was kissing him, Ray thought he understood  _ that _ better, as well.

 

The wall was suddenly hard against his back, and Fraser was tearing back long enough to hiss in a breath before kissing him again, harder and rougher than before. If Ray had to guess, the tension of their near death experience was weighing on them both, but maybe Fraser had some other, better wildman reason to try to shove his tongue down Ray’s throat.

 

No problem, though. Two could play at that game.

 

Their kiss was a back and forth power play, and it only ended when Ray accidentally bit Fraser’s lip in his effort to be just as rough back. They parted, breathless, and Ray dug his fingers into Fraser’s shoulder blades and pulled on him, refusing to give up on this any sooner than he had to.

 

“Don’t stop,” he breathed. “I swear if you stop, Fraser, I’m gonna throw you straight in the ocean.”

 

Fraser’s brow furrowed most adorably, like he was considering pointing out how illogical that statement was, but he seemed to guess that Ray already knew that, and said instead: “We’re right in the path of the wind.”

 

“Then let’s not take off any more clothes than we have to. Deal?”

 

Another laugh, like the relieved tumble of laughter at the end of their fight, fell into the air between them and was whipped away by the wind. In relief, Ray pressed a kiss against Fraser’s mouth, feeling the curve of Fraser’s smile against his own.

 

Fraser seemed to agree, in any event, because the whip of the wind couldn’t penetrate the windbreak of his broad back, and secret, dark spaces opened between them, warm spaces into which hands were able to wander and squeeze. 

 

Breathy kisses, curses and moans were swallowed up by the wind and carried off, and Ray was thankful for that. On a ship of Mounties he couldn’t have hoped for much privacy at all, but nobody came running to interrupt them. When Ray came undone in Fraser’s hands, and vice versa, there was nothing to do but fold into each other, content and safe. 

 

Together as partners and perhaps as something else, they turned into the chilling wind together, curled up against the hull of the ship to preserve their own shared warmth.

 

Their ship kept sailing on into the night.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I hope you liked it!


End file.
